Virtual Reality for Sales, Marketing, and Recruiting

The Potential of VR Marketing

Unless you’ve been living under The Rock for the past decade or so, I’m not going to be the first person to make you realize that digital technology has been rapidly evolving since it was created. Even someone with a terrible short-term memory can point to a common USB drive today, and recall how the same item costed 5x more just a few years prior. You’ve probably heard something about Moore’s Law, and, with that understanding, it might not surprise you to learn of the general exponential growth rate of technology. Expectations for the not-so-distant future vary, but hearing hypotheses from futurists like Jeremy Howard might be shocking when he suggests a designated living wage for the population after computers take all our jobs.

Anyways! I detail the overall growth of technology to help communicate how VR will improve in the coming years. Virtual Reality might be the modern day poster child of an emerging digital medium. This brand-spanking-new technology, though many mistakenly write it off as novelty, has been predicted to develop into a $80 billion dollar industry in the next TEN years! If you consider Virtual Reality to only be a “cool” format to display videos, you are severely underestimating the potential of this burgeoning tech. A user’s immersion within a VR environment blows standard 2D videos out of the water. Even when compared to 360 videos, Virtual Reality experiences are significantly more engaging than viewing a video on a flat screen. If current VR technology is already this compelling to people, imagine what we have to look forward to as it matures.

Video source: https://youtu.be/yk7IDVzLiQo

Among the plethora of uses for VR (some of which haven’t been fully realized yet), forward-thinking businesses and entrepreneurs have already utilized this technology as the driving force behind marketing campaigns. According to Cotton Delo at Adage.com, “virtual reality could be transformative for the ad industry.” Instead of poking advertisements into the lives of consumers through older mediums like commercials or billboards, VR marketing content actually attracts customers as a result of the level of engagement the content permits. Experiences are so much more stimulating than typical ads that users are much more friendly to brand content as a result. Not only does Virtual Reality provide more enjoyable content for viewers, but the message is significantly more memorable because it is provided through an experience, not a video. You’ve probably watched tons of videos today (there are dozens in this post!), but when compared to VR experiences that make you peek around and interact with your virtual environment, VR becomes much more impressionable on your memory.

The ability to transport viewers to any environment by handing them a VR headset also provides limitless opportunities with a fraction of the budget required to take them there physically. VR specifically allows for viewer experiences that can’t be offered through any other means! For example, Coca Cola created a VR experience for the 2014 World Cup that permitted viewers to step onto the pitch and play in a convincing fashion that no other medium can mimic. Foundry 45 used a similar development philosophy with their Georgia Tech Immersive Recruiting application which places users on the sideline of Bobby Dodd stadium during the “Miracle on Techwood Drive” play.

This fact cannot be overstated: Virtual Reality is not an updated way to view videos, but a new communication platform all its own that’s capable of previously impossible feats. Strategic implementation of Virtual Reality has the potential to yield never before seen results for your business’s marketing, and recruiting efforts. Companies large and small have pursued VR ventures to large degrees of success. Exemplary marketing uses of VR have emerged from The New York Times, Patrón, Lowe’s, Merrell, Marriott, Red Bull, Land Rover, Volvo, and even Michelle Obama! Make sure to check out all the success Foundry 45 has had with our Virtual Reality marketing efforts by checking out our case studies!

I liked VR before it was mainstream…

In a Facebook post announcing his purchase of the VR company Oculus (a 2 billion dollar investment), Mark Zuckerberg detailed his ambition for this “immersive, augmented reality [to] become part of daily life for billions of people.” Though seeing this technology reach that large of a scale may be hard to wrap your head around, the amount of research and financial investment being poured into this burgeoning industry from all directions should communicate how revolutionary this technology can and will become. Modern media is evolving, and the presence of immersive Virtual Reality indicates a large step forward for our digital capabilities. The sooner your business can take advantage of this new technology, the more you can benefit from its innovation before everyone else realizes what they’re missing!

If you want to take advantage of this cutting edge technology for your marketing or recruiting efforts, waste no time in contacting Foundry 45 for premiere VR content.
Also make sure to check out our blog filled with other information as well as tips and tricks for VR tech.

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[…] will expose you to this burgeoning community, give you familiarity with this new creative format that isn’t going away, and add another tool to your arsenal as a videographer. Don’t be the last videographer to jump […]